6: Azouma Restaurant | featuring syrian moroccan turkish lebanese tunisian & other arab & mediterranean cuisine | Bethany and I discovered Azouma shortly after arriving in Canterbury. Their lunch buffet is a fantastic deal of which she, Rebecca, and I took advantage many times during our stay. The staff is extremely friendly. When I asked if they sold their Moroccan Mint Tea in loose-leaf form, the hostess instead told me how to make it! Definitely wish we had one of these in Champaign...

8: sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text sample text text | Saturday, 11 September 2010 An ominous day to be in the air... Fortunately, my flight was uneventful. Sunday, 12 September 2010 A representative from ------------------------------------------------------------- met the incoming students at Heathrow Airport in London, and we were transported to Canterbury via coach (a one and-a-half hour trip). When we arrived, some students were dropped off at dormitory-style housing; then, the rest of us (who were staying with families) were given taxi rides to our new homes. I arrived at my host family's house in the afternoon, exhausted and hungry (no arrangements had been made by the university regarding meals). Fortunately, my hostess, ---------, was prepared for this possibility and had a hot meal ready. As it turned out, she and her sister, ------ and brother-in-law, -------- (how English is that?), always had dinner together on Sundays, so I not only received a hot meal but a welcoming committee, too. My new friends were very understanding of how tired I was and (thankfully) didn't require much conversation from me. I don't remember the rest of that day. I imagine I went to sleep shortly after eating. Nothing like sitting all day (car, plane, bus, taxi) to wear one out. | bon | VOYAGE

10: sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample text sample | The English: Getting Personal blog post: Tuesday, 19 October 2010 In the process of research for an upcoming essay on what it means to be British and how that differs from American national identity, I have been reading an excellent book (recommended to me by a dear friend) called Watching the English: the Hidden Rules of English Behaviour, written by Kate Fox, an English anthropologist. One of the characteristics she investigates is the English value of privacy and their unwillingness to offer a great deal of personal information to casual acquaintances. Obviously, this is in great contrast to Americans who will unabashedly (and probably quite loudly) give a thorough history of their recent divorce, situation at work, and accomplishments of their children to a person they may have met as recently as 15 minutes previously. I haven't noticed this reserve amongst the other students very much, but I have definitely found it to be true of the older people of my acquaintance here, and my American class- mates seem to support this impression. Allow me to give you an amusing example. My hostess was at one point married. I assume her husband has died, but she has never said, and I obviously have not wanted to bring it up out of the blue. I think it was about the second week I was here that a good opportunity finally presented itself (or so I thought). During the course of a conversation on travel, Lavinia said she had been to Ireland, and on subsequently finding out that her husband was from that country, I asked her how they met. Now, as you know, in the U.S., this question is the prompt for the How-I-Met-My-Spouse Story. You won't find this term in the dictionary, but it is no less valid as a specific and clearly-defined conversation form. First of all, it is not only a perfectly acceptable topic of conversation to introduce on first acquaintance with someone, but is the most often made use of to become better acquainted with that person. Secondly, you can expect that the story will take at least 5 minutes to tell and very likely more. Thirdly, if it is retold in the company of the children resulting from said story, it will be accompanied by sighs and eye-rolling, as they've heard it countless times. (Similarly, if told in the presence of the other partner, it may also be periodically interrupted with corrections and modifications.) As to actual content, it will include a brief background of each partner's situation just prior to having met, proceed to the circumstances which brought the couple together, continue with a summary of how long the courtship lasted, and will probably culminate in the proposal. Finally, you can be assured that, after having given the story so many times, the speaker will have it down to an art form, so that even if she met her partner somewhere as mundane as a gas station, dated for an average amount of time, and received an ordinary, no-frills proposal, the story is still given with as much dramatic flourish as if it were an Oscar-winning screenplay. SO... with 28 years' worth of these stories shaping my cultural behavior, I did my part by asking the appropriate Prompt Question (so, how did you two meet?) and, settling back in expectation of the requisite 5-minute account, received the following response: "in a pub." End of story. | Sample Text here | my hostess